Jan 24, 2010

Genesis 14

I was reading about this passage and there have been some questions over the years. Who are these kings that are mentioned? There’s speculation that this Kedorlaomer may have been the famous Hammurabi, but others doubt that. All four of these attacking kings have names which are similar to names archeologists have found, but there are no exact matches.

There was also a question for years and years about why they would bother attacking. Genesis gives us a little clue in verse 4, telling us that these kings in Canaan had previously been under the rule of Kedorlaomer, but then had rebelled. Still, some wondered, why would the four powerful kings go to all this trouble? The lands in question—they argued—weren’t worth fighting for. Especially when you have to come from so great a distance to fight.

But then, someone discovered that the region of Sodom and Gomorrah had extensive copper mines back in those days. So the kings were not just there to put down a rebellion, but—probably—to regain their hold on these very valuable mines.

In the process of recapturing these territories, they also capture Abram’s nephew Lot. This is important for us to know later but right now I want you to notice that Lot has gone from just having his tent pointing toward Sodom to actually living in Sodom. That’s the way it always works. We start by tolerating evil and pretty soon we’re living in the midst of it. I find it interesting that the guy who survives the battle goes and tells the news to Abram, rather than one of the surviving kings. He knew who to go to to get results.

Why did the attackers capture Lot? Why capture him and not the king(s)? Was it because of the beauty of his daughters and wife? What they hadn’t counted on was Abram. Maybe they knew of the wealth of Abram and thought Lot would be a good shield or could be ransomed.

But Abram has 318 fighting men born in his household! That’s a lot of fighting men! Still, it’s not enough to attack these four powerful kings. It didn’t have to be. The wording could indicate that these were just the men who had been born in Abram’s household (and, as such, could have been legally adopted by him). If their fathers came along, there could have been this many (or more) again in Abram’s fighting force. We also find out at the end of the chapter that Aner, Eschol and Mamre went along with Abram and, presumably, brought their fighting men as well. Abram could have had a pretty sizable force with him. Not only that, the four kings probably weren’t expecting an attack.

And let’s not forget one other detail that would probably get left out of most scientific books on the art of war: God was with Abram.

So Abram comes back victorious and he’s greeted by two people: the King of Sodom and the King of Salem. The king of Sodom, if you noticed, hid out in the rocks when the battle started going badly, but now he’s happy to welcome the victorious Abram back. Even wants to give him a reward, but Abram turns it down because he knows how wicked the King of Sodom’s domain has become and doesn’t want anyone to be able to say that Abram’s wealth came from such tainted goods.

The other man who came out there is who I want to focus on. His name is Melchizedek and, if he were only mentioned here, most of us might not even remember him. Remember, though: this book we call the Bible, even though it was written by more than 30 different authors of a period of several hundred years, is still a unified whole directed by God. See, this passage—while exciting—would seem to most of us like it could have been left out … if not for one other reference to Melchizedek.

Hebrews 6:20-7:17

And 7:26-28
Jesus, then, is the High Priest that meets our needs. He is holy; he has no fault or sin in him; he has been set apart from sinners and raised above the heavens. He is not like other high priests; he does not need to offer sacrifices every day for his own sins first and then for the sins of the people. He offered one sacrifice, once and for all, when he offered himself. The Law of Moses appoints men who are imperfect to be high priests; but God's promise made with the vow, which came later than the Law, appoints the Son, who has been made perfect forever. (GNB)

In Abraham’s day, the father of the household was responsible for the religious instruction of his household. He was its priest. Abram, then, is priest and prophet of his household. Just as Isaac would be responsible for his household and Israel/Jacob for his and so on down the line for several hundred years. Then, through Moses, God established the priestly line of Aaron and the Levites.

Along comes Jesus and—suddenly—we have a problem (in some people’s minds). On the one hand, Jesus can’t be a priest because he’s from the tribe of Judah and not the tribe of Levi. On the other hand, who wants another human priest like all the corrupt ones we’ve had before?!?

The book of Hebrews is so called because it was written to a Hebrew audience. As opposed to a Greek audience, the people Hebrews was written to would have been intimately familiar with all aspects of Jewish culture, both Scriptural and traditional. And maybe some of them wanted to believe in Jesus of Nazareth, but they just couldn’t forget that he was a Levite. How can such a man be our high priest?

So the writer of Hebrews, like a lawyer today, is telling them, “Here’s the precedent. Our father Abraham recognized this Melchizedek as a priest of God. He was not of holy lineage. He was set apart by God, for God. The same is true of Jesus.” For, while Jesus was of royal lineage, he was not of priestly lineage.

All the previous priests have been fully human, and with that came greed and graft and licentiousness and all the sins common to man. Therefore, the priests could only represent us imperfectly and couldn’t save us at all. Now, we have a priest who’s not from the order of Levi (or the Jesuits), but like Melchizedek, is a priest of God! Not only that, he is God! He’s exactly what we need.

What do I DO with this?

We were created with a desire for God in our hearts. A desire for something greater than ourselves. And we will find it. Some people fill that desire with booze or drugs or power. Some fill it with a political system. We will fill it with something.

That desire was put there by God so that we would fill it with God. If we don’t make Jesus the high priest of our lives, letting him be not only the mediator between us and God but the “building contractor” or our lives, our lives will forever be unfulfilled. We’ll always be longing.

If we turn our lives over to him, he’s going to do some work on us—and some of it may be painful—but he’ll repair us and make us what we were born to be.